Hansard
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 31 - 45 of 279
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-05-11 14:26 [p.7057]
Mr. Speaker, that logic is a little far-fetched, unfortunately.
This pandemic has taught us that it is important to be ready for anything. When we are in a minority government situation, we know an election could be triggered at any time. The Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives actually voted for an election just a few weeks ago.
We will make sure we are prepared if there is an election, but we do not want an election. The opposition parties are the only ones talking about an election.
We, in contrast, are working for Canadians.
View Catherine McKenna Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Catherine McKenna Profile
2021-05-10 12:03 [p.6938]
moved:
That, in relation to Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (COVID-19 response), not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and
That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
View Gérard Deltell Profile
2021-05-10 12:05 [p.6938]
Madam Speaker, what a sad day for parliamentary democracy. A time allocation motion is unpleasant at any time, even if sometimes it is a necessary evil, but a time allocation motion on a bill dealing with Canadians' right to vote is rubbing salt in the wound.
What we are debating today is the way Canadians will vote in the next election if it is held during the current pandemic, which could very well be the case. In moving this time allocation motion to restrict parliamentarians' right to speak, the government is launching a direct attack on the heart of democracy. That is completely unacceptable.
We are hearing the government say that the opposition parties are doing everything they can to delay the work of Parliament, but that is completely false. The best way to delay the work of Parliament is to prorogue Parliament, like the Liberals did last August. Why is the government not assuming its responsibilities? Why is it not allowing proper and thorough debate on a bill that directly relates to Canadian democracy?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
2021-05-10 12:06 [p.6939]
Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his intervention and his question.
I understand that he is fully playing his role of leader of the official opposition in the House. However, when I was in the opposition and his party was in power during the Harper years, his government did not hesitate to use time allocation motions regularly, even daily on some occasions. I understand that my colleague has a role to play by expressing a certain degree of indignation, which I freely accept.
However, on the substance of the issue, we believe the time has come for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to study Bill C-19 and make amendments if necessary. For the hours of debate that have been held so far, the members of the opposition have already made several suggestions for improving this bill, which, let us be clear, will only be in effect for the next election. I think therefore it is time for the House to refer the bill to the committee to be studied.
View Alain Therrien Profile
BQ (QC)
View Alain Therrien Profile
2021-05-10 12:07 [p.6939]
Madam Speaker, my colleague must be joking when he says it is time to send the bill to committee.
This act demands consensus. This is about the Canada Elections Act and the right to vote, as my colleague astutely pointed out earlier. There has to be consensus. Over four months of debate, only one Bloc Québécois member has spoken to this bill.
The Liberals introduced Bill C-19 on December 10, 2020, while the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was already looking into the issue. Instead of waiting for the committee to finish its work, the Liberals decided to introduce a bill, utterly disregarding democratic institutions, such as the committee. Now they are forcing closure with help from the NDP, their usual accomplice for this kind of tactic. They say there has been enough debate and this bill must go to committee. I am not making this up.
The Liberals have trouble managing a legislative calendar. They are a bunch of amateurs. Here is my question. Are they not ashamed to invoke closure on a bill that requires consensus?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
2021-05-10 12:08 [p.6939]
Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from La Prairie.
No, we are not at all ashamed to give Parliament the opportunity to pass a bill that will temporarily amend the Canada Elections Act for the next election only in response to an official request submitted to the House by the Chief Electoral Officer.
My hon. colleague from La Prairie spends his time expressing his lack of confidence in the government by voting against it. It is therefore clear that he wants an election because, otherwise, why would he spend his time doing that?
We think it is a good idea to give Elections Canada a lot more flexibility to protect residents of Quebec's long-term care facilities, for example. The proposed amendments to the Canada Elections Act were introduced in Parliament a few months ago. I would invite my colleague to recognize that, last Friday, when Bill C-19 was debated in the House of Commons, the four Conservative members who spoke about it once again insisted on delaying the vote to send this bill to committee.
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
NDP (MB)
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
2021-05-10 12:10 [p.6939]
Madam Speaker, I want to start by recognizing what a frustrating situation we find ourselves in as a Parliament. The election in Newfoundland and Labrador showed very clearly that even if an election during the pandemic did not precipitate a public health crisis on its own, it could have really damaging effects for democracy and for the outcomes of an election.
The government has proposed some temporary changes to the Elections Act. It has not called the bill very often, which has been a point of frustration for New Democrats, but when it has, the official opposition has often found ways to delay and stall.
We have an important bill that really needs to be passed, given that the Prime Minister repeatedly refuses to put everybody at ease and say that he will not unilaterally call an election during the pandemic. Our view is that the responsible response to that is to try to get rules in place exactly because we do not trust the Prime Minister to do the right thing.
Perhaps the government today could allay those concerns and let us know when the Prime Minister intends to commit that he will not call an election during the pandemic. When is that announcement coming?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
2021-05-10 12:11 [p.6939]
Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, for his constructive conversation with respect to this legislation. We have taken note, obviously, of his comments in the House during the debate at second reading.
The New Democratic Party has constructively and thoughtfully suggested, for example, some improvements around ensuring that campus voting can take place and potentially using Canada Post locations in small rural communities like those in my riding. The Canada Post office may offer an additional place where people, for example, could apply to receive a special ballot.
Those are precisely the kinds of discussions that we are hoping the procedure and House affairs committee can have around Bill C-19.
We would welcome working with all colleagues around amendments that would improve the legislation. However, we think the time has come for Parliament to take its responsibilities, study the bill in committee and offer Elections Canada the tools necessary should there be an election during the pandemic, and to do so safely and prudently in the interest of protecting everybody who works in elections.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I have heard some comments today from members of the official opposition and the Bloc that seem to suggest that they are not too familiar with the bill or the parliamentary process.
First, the leader in the House for the official opposition said that this would change the way Canadians would vote in the next election, which is not true. It would only change if an election happened during a pandemic; there are sunset clauses on this. Could the minister confirm that these are only temporary measures during the pandemic?
Second, the Bloc suggests that this is a done deal after today, but there is still a lot of parliamentary work to go on from this point. Indeed, the bill would go to committee for rounds of discussion there and then it would come back to the House for another debate.
Could the minister comment on those two points?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
2021-05-10 12:13 [p.6940]
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague friend, the member for Kingston and the Islands, is absolutely right. He is an experienced parliamentarian and understands the parliamentary process.
A vote today would simply allow the procedure and House affairs committee to study the legislation and to look at it clause-by-clause. We would hope that the committee would want to hear from important witnesses, such as the Chief Electoral Officer. At the root of this conversation is a report sent to the House of Commons in October of last year from the Chief Electoral Officer, asking Parliament to make, as my hon. colleague noted, temporary changes to the Elections Act that would apply only to the next general election and would sunset once the pandemic circumstance was over.
We think it is time for Parliament to have a look at this legislation in committee and ensure that the people who work delivering safe and fair elections for all Canadians, and there are hundreds of thousands of these people, can do so safely.
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, the minister is probably one of the smoothest speakers I have ever heard in Parliament. Let us be honest. We have been speaking about the bill for about four and a half hours. On Friday, yes, there were Conservative speakers, because at 12:06 p.m., we found out that no Liberals would be speaking.
I recognize all these things. However, we talk about a sunset clause, but it is mentioned only the preamble of the bill. Therefore, a lot of work needs to be done.
Most of all, why did the minister put forward legislation before he got the excellent report that came out of the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs? Why did he go forward with this legislation before taking any of the information that we had provided to him?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
2021-05-10 12:15 [p.6940]
Madam Speaker, I suppose I should thank my hon. colleague from Elgin—Middlesex—London for what was surely intended as a compliment.
I share her view that the procedure and House affairs committee did excellent work in studying the report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. We obviously followed the work of the committee very closely. I would note that the legislation largely follows the recommendations made by the Chief Electoral Officer. We just disagreed and thought we should have more potential voting days than simply those on the weekend before what had traditionally been a polling day on Monday.
We introduced this legislation before Christmas because we thought it was important for Parliament to have a chance to consider it over the Christmas break. I talked to a number of colleagues in the House of Commons during that period. When it came back, we called it for debate.
My hon. colleague said that last Friday at 12:06 p.m. she found out there would be no Liberals speaking. That was precisely because we wanted the debate to conclude so Parliament could vote and the committee could begin studying the bill. The Conservatives obviously used that as a chance to filibuster it.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-05-10 12:17 [p.6940]
Madam Speaker, I would like to reassure our colleagues opposite. The Bloc Québécois carefully examined the bill and we are starting to become very familiar with parliamentary procedure, so there is no need to worry. We have experience. However, that is not the issue here. What we are talking about here is respect for the work of parliamentarians.
There has been very little debate on this very important issue, and many things are still up in the air, including the number of days. As the previous speaker mentioned, the government wants to ram through this legislation without any respect for the work of committees.
My question is critically important. Why will the government not give us the time to hold a proper debate? Is it because the government members are worried that the window of time in which they think they can win a majority is closing too quickly and they want to ram this through so they can be ready just in case?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
2021-05-10 12:18 [p.6940]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his comment and, especially, for his belief that if there were an election right away, the government would win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. I never doubted it myself, but I am really pleased to hear my colleague share this belief.
However, as he knows very well, we are not trying to call an election. It is not the Liberal Party that has a lack of confidence in the government. On the other hand, the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives cannot deny they have never had confidence in the government. I acknowledge my colleague, but he should know very well from the parliamentary experience he cited that a vote of non-confidence in the government increases the likelihood of an election.
We believe it would be appropriate for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to study the bill in detail to amend and improve it. We want to work with our parliamentary colleagues, especially in committee. That is why we are pleased to hold a vote today to send the bill to committee.
Results: 31 - 45 of 279 | Page: 3 of 19

|<
<
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data